So it isn't a joke. No april fools day. Second Life 2.0 is now the official viewer, and no one likes it. I liked the new user interface a lot, except for the few bugs which have been resolved with the following updates. But I agree with those who miss the old layout of profiles, I am a profile sneaker and it's kinda shocking to have them sliding from the right of the screen, and get to read them as if they were a newspaper article. GRR!

Anyway, we still got viewer 1.23.5 to use but...for how long? this morning I got a message on the startup screen saying that installing NOW the 2.0 will not overwrite the old one, and I believe this is the first time this happens. Freedom of choice, but again for how long?

For sure there's one thing we are all sad about.



Since the first release of SL 2.0, we 've lost FreeTube. Some say it's just a coincidence, some say it's not, fact is this wonderful machine is not working anymore. Thanks a lot Soy Nakamori, it's been good till it lasted. Now we can play Youtube videos on a prim, but there is no frigging way to hide the Youtube interface and it won't look like a normal TV set for sure.

On the other hand, Facebook runs just smooth on a SL prim. Lol isn't that just masochistic?

**HUGS** to all!

Sad day today as the 1-month-long Twisted Hunt comes to an end at midnight.
To be honest, I haven't hunted at all, but it's been fun to wake up early (GMT+1) and log into SL for the usual daily dose of Twisted Hunt Group Chat. For those of you who have no idea what that means, just imagine yourself having your morning coffee with sleepy eyes and then get to read all sorts of swearing/bad words/yellings/F-words/P-words/A-words and so on including all possible twisted ideas that might come into the minds of the devoted Twisted Hunters while they incessantly ask for hints to the group moderators. It's an extreme experience (hmm, lol), but so funny you all should try it. You have a few hours left to complete the hunt, only 103 (or more I can't remember) boxes to find at 103 different stores, so good luck and be quick!

As a tribute to the Twisted Hunt, I thought I could go spend some of my hardly earnt L$ and buy samples of the average kind of kinky clothes/items for sale at most of the stores involved in the Hunt, just to make a funny book of photos of Midd in all his BDSM-RP-BONDAGE glory.

So I hope you like my Twisted avatar:).
(I don't, but the suffocating-venom-mask I bought is definitely blog-worthy, lol)



And yes I know the shoes aren't twisted at all. They just add to the fun!

Ciao:)

Pay a little attention to the two cars in the picture. (you can enlarge it all by clicking on it) One of the two is the actual picture of the RL car, the other one is..a fake. Fake as in 'pixelled fake'!
So, can you tell me which is which?



mhhmmm....hard to pick the right one I know.
A little hint: the pixelled car lacks the steering wheel and has some weird red coloured interiors. Easier now? yeah, but still incredible, it looks a lot better than the real one.

It's been made by my friend Gianfranco Foxclaw using a pretty expensive 3D modeling software called 3D Studio Max. He HAD to give me the 'missing steering wheel' hint to help me realise it REALLY was fake. He said he got tired of working on it, and he didn't want to spend more time on building the wheel and finding good textures for the seats, lol. I reckon it looks perfect anyway.
So this is just to show you a glimpse of what the future holds for us SecondLifers. The future is...mesh imports! even if it is still not clear whether the official Second Life 2.0 release will include a full mesh import functionality or not, the legend says it will allow some basic transfer beetween actual RL 3D software and the SL viewer build functions. It really is an old legend, lol, as NWN mentioned it quite a long while ago. In short, you build objects offline, the way you want and HOW you want, then click on the import button and..there you go, you have the object rezzing on your land in SL. There's rumours saying only premium accounts will be allowed the privilege, and this badly affects my enthusiasm about it(i am never ever gonna go premium) . Plus, I am not sure how much of the accuracy given by the professional made 3D object will be effectively noticeable once the transfer to SL is complete, but for sure it 's gonna look a lot better than this:




only downside...LAG! I am not an expert but Gianfranco says that driving a high-def thing like that in SL will keep you stuck in first gear with the engine going full revs, lol.

In order to know more I sent Midd directly to 955 Battery Street, San Francisco CA, but Philip Rosedale wouldn't let him in 'cause he is age verified under a fake RL name and LL headquarters are rated as adult...very adult, lol.

Special credits go to Banana Vella for helping me with this pic. ILU baby. (GIMP is a biatch!!!)

oh, and feel free to IM Gianfranco Foxclaw for custom textures and/or custom builds. He speaks some english, but I 'll be happy to help with the translation(free of charge, lol) in case it's needed.

Ciao!

Erm since it's my blog I think I am free to spam and advertise as much as I want on here.
But there's a reason behind this, this is just to say thanks to some people I am proud to call friends. It serves also as an apology to them, for all the times I haven't answered their IM's in the past weeks when they were just showing how much they cared. So i hope you STILL care, guys. (lol)

Spam number 1:

www.thenestoftheraven.webs.com

this is the cool (and very well designed) website of dear RohanaRaven. It's about animations. I blogged about her store recently, but she 's added some more cool stuff there and you need to go check it out again!

Spam number 2:

there's a lady who has just started making her own skyboxes. I am not sure she 'll appreciate me mentioning her 'hobby', but this is just to remind her that she should SRSLY start a business and sell loads of them. This is the skybox she made for me, and her name is Sammi Ninetails. Im her for info about prices!



Spam number 3:

Golden Water Med.
Pay a visit to this sim created by my friend Spilo. It has a disco, a bar, a beach, house rentals and a shopping mall with all kinds of clothes for you shopping addicts. And may I say, it's very gaylesbobisex friendly. Yay!
Plus, there's a place up in the sky there (very very UP) I call home.




Spam number 4:
Erm, nothing to spam about her. Jenni, where are you? (lol)

Ciao to all:)

I am trying to get used to viewer 2.0 ....
I kinda have to, as something tells me it's definitely going to be THE VIEWER in a couple of months or less. So I 'd better stick to it and...practise.

But one weird thing happened since I last used 1.23 (or whatever the previous one is).
I now have a new friend, I can't remember when we met, how I added him and where.
His first name is....First, and his last name is Last. Thats original, no doubt. Have a look:


Funny thing is..this guy (I suppose he is a HE) keeps logging in and off, and then off again and then relogs a dozen times each hour, so I guess he is probably sticking to the old viewer and its crashes..


poor guy.


who's the poor guy? ME!! I can't fix this bug, I don't know how. 2.0 doesn't recognize who's coming online among my friends list, and calls them all Mr. First Last. WTF??? are you serious? what am i gonna do now? is it just me or just the italian version?? HELP!

Anyway. There's one more thing I noticed on viewer 2.0 ... but this has nothing to do with the Lindens really.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the italian language, it's just I missed Banana's third rezday. Well she missed it too, lol.
So baby, have a wonderful day-after-ur-third-rezday and let's make all our dreams come true, if possible, lol.

bye:)

I believe one of the most unused features of the SL viewer must be the ‘notes’ page in an avatar’s profile. I have never had a reason to use it, at least for its intended purpose, and I know most of my friends don’t even know it’s there. They are so used to consider the first life page as the ‘last one’ to read, and why would we put notes in there when we have lots of other ways to remember things about someone? I ‘ve heard of people keeping their passwords there, or chatlogs, lol. But to be honest, quite some time ago I decided that my own avatar’s notes page would become the ideal place to just store my secret six numbers…02/24/07. Yeps that’s my rezday. Not Midd’s, but Kiavik’s, my first avi. 3 years old in SL, and I can’t really say my life hasn’t changed. What if I had never read that magazine article about the new virtual world. What if I had given up playing sl after the first (very) boring week?. Would I be a different person now? 3 years aren’t enough yet to make a final statement about it, but I think it’s just me not being able to judge. Considering the recent developments in my first life I can surely say I have been living in the first row seat of a superfast rollercoaster for 3 years with no interruption. How can someone judge if it’s good for your health? For sure the excitement makes people feel alive. Headaches too, but they’re painful, sometimes a lot painful. Anyway, as the years go by I am less and less inclined to care about the ‘timestamps’, as in weeks,months, years and even days if you ‘re using Emerald (argh I think I already forgot about my 1000^th day! Lol). No timestamps, SL is just a little part of me, sometimes a major source for happiness, sometimes just a pastime. The goal is to make yourself capable of balancing the highs and lows. Get me? (I know most of you agree)

Talking about highs and lows. Linden labs has provided us all with a new viewer, just to give me a boost of optimism as I cross the line into the fourth year. I know everyone is talking about it, and there isn’t much I can add really. Probably there’s just one thing no one has noticed yet, and this is the capability of the SL 2.0 viewer to be run even on poorer machines (poor as in hardware-poor, lol). The viewer seems to be lighter in RAM usage, and 128 Graphics dedicated megas are still enough to be part of the game, I admit it’s a bit of trouble (/me adds ‘when the heck are you gonna buy yourself a new lappy?’ in the notes page) but still, it’s nice of Linden Labs to keep us all together, noobs and oldies regardless of the hardware specs we got. Considering how long it takes to load a Facebook page with all the plugins enabled on a Mozilla Firefox web browser, the new web-oriented layout of SL 2.0 makes things look even easier despite being a 3D world. So kudos to LL. I have been using it only for a half hour, and it was plenty of time to get used to the new features and to find my way in the different positioning of the pre-existing ones. It looks cool. Omg, have they kept the notes page in the profile’s popups? Lol. Haven’t checked that yet.

Moving to a more…personal tone. Here’s a picture I need to show..(shall I say UPON REQUEST?*winks*)

We stepped off the rollercoaster for a while, took some time to sit on a rocking chair and she kissed me on my nose. How sweet. (the RL equivalent of the above actions required a bit of a flying around the world and also a bit of driving along the Italian magnificent coastline, lol)

To all my friends who have been there for me in the past month…thanks a lot guys. I have been in silent mode lately, I will get back to normal soon, and I hope you understand. Please DO understand, lol.

Now, the WTF in the name of the post refers to this:

While in the midst of writing this post I got the news from Banana about her account being suspended. This IS NOT COOL, Lindens. You ‘re stepping on your own feet. Surely it won’t be a biggie, knowing the person you’re dealing with, she ‘ll be able to kick some ass and get things sorted easily.

But, hey. NOT COOL AT ALL.

CIAO to all.

My dear long time friend and wannabe sister Rohanaraven Zerbino has just started her new business in SL. After quite a few years of building anything that can be built she kinda wanted to try her skills at animations...and her new store is just fantastic!
just go and see for yourself.


Animations are very cheap, and they're transfer only or full mod. But you can also upgrade the transfer ones to full mod. Just IM Rohana for more info.
Here 's a nice one;)


And if you upgrade to full perm, you 'll get a builders' package with a help pose included, so that you can set up the assets easily (i dunno what this means, but i suppose any builder will know, lol)

Get your ass there now!

ciao.